On May 17, 2024, widespread reports emerged that former Special Prosecutor Martin Amidu had filed a petition seeking the removal of his successor, Kissi Agyebeng.
Initial reports suggested that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had forwarded the petition to the Chief Justice.
However, neither the petition nor the transmission letter from the executive to the judiciary has been publicly seen.
On the same day the report was published, a letter allegedly from the Chief Justice to the Special Prosecutor circulated. In this letter, the Chief Justice asks Agyebeng to respond to the contents of the supposed petition to determine if there is a prima facie case.
In a May 26, 2024, letter addressed to his political and media detractors, Amidu listed eight points denying authorship of the said petition.
Below are the points raised:
Firstly, I am not familiar with the signature of the Chief Justice – with reference to the purported letter from the CJ to SP, which is the only evidence he has sighted.
Secondly, the document attributed to the Chief Justice has no reference number as required by public records administration to avoid forgery of official documents.
Thirdly, as a former student of the Tamale Commercial Institute, the first commercial institute in Northern Ghana, I cannot fathom a Chief Justice writing and signing a document in which she will refer to herself as “the Honourable Chief Justice”.
Fourthly, I do not think that the Chief Justice would have written and signed the document attributed to her and have it published in the media or leaked
to the media.
Fifth, the alleged document was addressed to only Kissi Agyebeng, the Special
Prosecutor, whose media house, Joy FM, broke the supposed news at 6:00 am on 17 May 2024 when the Chief Justice’s document was dated the previous day, 16 May 2024.
Sixth, I cannot fathom that the Chief Justice if she is the author of the document attributed to her gave the addressee a fiat to source the document to Joy FM.
Seventh, Joy FM and the NDC have refused or failed to publish the letter from the Presidency to the Chief Justice or the alleged petition for purposes of authentication to enable a reasoned response from me as the Joy FM’s accused in its trial in the court of public opinion.
Finally, it is impossible for me to have written a petition under my signature and referred to Kissi Agyebeng as “Honourable Kissi Agyebeng” as alleged in the document attributed to the Chief Justice.
He stressed: “I expect the Chief Justice, if she really wrote the document making the rounds and did not publish or authorize its publication in the media, to react to the authenticity of the letter or the memorandum and its contents to put the public mind at rest or take such steps as will restore the integrity of the Judicial Service as not being part of my trauma resulting form my trial by
Kissi Agyebeng, Joy FM, and the NDC in the court of public opinion.”